In unusual move, trial exhibits posted online in McDonnell case

Aside from all the testimony coming from the witness stand, there is another surprising thing about the federal corruption case against Bob and Maureen McDonnell: The public access that U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer has granted to trial exhibits.

Every day by 10 a.m., exhibits that were admitted into evidence at trial the previous day must be posted online. Prosecutors and defense lawyers must add them to the federal court's fee-based website, pacer.gov.

More than 2,900 pages of trial exhibits have so far been posted. Though some of the documents are scrubbed for such things as Social Security numbers, the evidence includes everything from emails to text messages, from bank statements to loan applications, from daily calendars to phone records.

There are pictures of Bob McDonnell driving a white Ferrari owned by Jonnie Williams, the businessman at the center of the case. There are pictures of an engraved Rolex watch Williams bought the governor. And there are pictures of designer dresses Williams bought Maureen McDonnell on a shopping trip to New York City.

The idea of making exhibits publicly available is in line with what court rulings, including the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, say should be done.

Under the constitution, court hearings are open — to protect defendants and the public, and to lend an air of legitimacy to the process. And as part of that, trial exhibits are seen as public records, too — even as the trial is underway.

"Once evidence has become known to members of the public through their attendance at a public session of court, it would take the most extraordinary circumstances to justify restrictions on the opportunity of those not physically in attendance at the courtroom to see and hear the evidence," according to a 2006 appeals court decision in the federal circuit that includes Virginia.

But in our experience, posting trial exhibits on the court's website during a trial is quite uncommon. In fact, we've never seen it done here previously.

Instead, we are typically told that we can't see the exhibits — even at the courthouse — until after the case is over, and often have to push judges and clerks for access during a trial. But especially in longer trials, having to wait to see such evidence can severely hamper our ability to tell the whole story.

During the 2013 federal fraud trial in Newport News against Jeffrey A. Martinovich, we were initially denied any access to the thousands of pages of trial exhibits. Later in the trial, U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar finally relented after a Daily Press lawyer showed up at the trial and argued the point.

At first, Doumar said the Daily Press could have access to the documents only if the paper "pays to keep the courthouse open" at the end of each day, including salaries for security and the clerk's office. He later backed off of that requirement.

In Newport News Circuit Court, court clerks initially said we would not get any access to trial documents in the recent John Ragin capital murder case until after the month-long trial was over.

But Circuit Judge Timothy Fisher soon overruled that, granting the access to documents so long as we provided him a daily request for the documents we wanted to see.

Though the exhibits often weren't ready in the clerk's office by the next morning, we usually got them within two or three days of our requests.

Ask us questions, we'll get answers

We're starting a new weekly feature in this column, where readers can send in questions related to legal and law enforcement issues.

We're not planning on giving legal advice, of course. But we can provide some general answers to questions that may be on readers' minds, mostly regarding the legal and criminal process.

If there is a question we don't have the answer to, we will turn to experts in the legal field.

Some examples of the types of questions could be as follows:

• If a police officer pulls me over and thinks I was texting, do I have to let him see my phone?

• I got a speeding ticket the other day. Does that mean that I was "arrested," even though I never got out of the car or handcuffed?

• Who qualifies for free legal counsel?

• If I get jury duty, do I get paid or do I lose money from the time I wasn't at work?